Podcast of the Week: Jaffa Cakes For Proust

❉ Jaffa Cakes For Proust take on TV, cinema and other aspects of popular culture.

We’re big fans of podcasts here at We Are Cult, and we’re always looking for more shows to subscribe to. So if you’re looking for ear candy, we’re here to help!

This week: Gary Rodger and Tilt Araiza tell us all about the Jaffa Cakes For Proust podcast, bringing Sitcom Club-style discussion to things other than sitcoms; they’ll take on TV, cinema and other aspects of popular culture, frequently 20th century British fare.

What’s your podcast about?

British popular culture, generally from Music Hall to the Broadcasting Act 1990 *spit*. We gravitate towards Variety and non-genre drama, though we did do some Doctor Who and we gave Virtual Murder a savaging. Somewhere along the line, we started using the phrase “in search of lost Britain”, which sounds a bit grand but we do keep finding tics and tendencies that don’t seem to be much talked about these days.

If you had to describe your show in 10 words or less, what would you say?

Looking for new angles and forgotten patterns in British culture.

Which episode would you recommend for a first-time listener?

Tilt:We don’t have episodes, we have editions.

Gary: (Sigh) I’d recommend the episode where we discuss British TV At Night, a nice mix of uncovering forgotten details and remembering wee nooks and crannies of the schedules.

Tilt: We’d been doing The Sitcom Club since 2013, but I was running out of things to say about sitcoms and was itching to talk about other things. We tested the waters one Summer when we took a “sitcom recess” and instead did shows about things like football coverage on TV and 3-2-1.

Gary:The Sitcom Club was terrific fun – it returns with eight new shows in 2018 – but it’s nice to have a peek at the wider world, or at least the areas of popular culture that often don’t attract mainstream discussion.

Which guests have you had on your podcast so far?

Our guests are just our friends or friends of friends who we think have something to say about a topic we want to deal with.

Who would be your dream guest?

Gary: Barry Cryer – we could ask him about so many topics, comedians & shows that it would take a server upgrade to store all the finished recordings.

Tilt: I can’t argue with that, but I thought Gary was going to say Tony Currie, a continuity announcer for STV who knows all about the fiddly bits of broadcasting and once had to fill for 45 minutes when an outside broadcast went down.

Which equipment do you use for your podcast set-up?

A Blue Yeti apiece, copies of CoolEdit Pro 2.0 (Tilt), ocenaudio (Gary) and a lot of acoustic foam (though we do need more). We talk over Skype, but record our own microphones rather than the call. Then the two recordings are stitched together in CoolEdit’s multitrack. This means if one of us gets a coughing fit while the other’s talking, we can mix it out and the listener will never know.

What would you say is the best length of time for a podcast episode?

We aim for 50-70 minutes, but for shows we like to listen to, it depends on how much the podcasters have to say about the subject and how articulate they are. A well packed 3 hours can fly by and a waffling 30 minutes can be agony.

Which podcasts (other than yours) would you recommend we listen to?

Room 404 (in which our friend Iain seeks to revive the spirit of the original Radio 5 version of Room 101), Just One More Thing (a witty and snarky look at every episode of Columbo, Tilt guested on it by virtue of having seen the 1960, Bert Freed version of Columbo), Stu’s Show (a fab American show discussing all aspects of US TV history, done as live audio/videocasts on alternate Wednesdays and available for purchase the day after. Stu’s had names as big as Dick Van Dyke on the show), Monday Night Braw (fun US wrestling talk from a UK perspective), Zilch – A Monkees Podcast (interviews, episode commentaries and they even found it in their hearts to say nice things about The New Monkees).

Gary: In the coming years, although YouTube & Facebook’s live video streaming will grab the headlines, podcasts will continue to thrive as listeners discover shows aimed squarely at their niche interests. The superb combination of targeted programming and portability – I never commute without a stack of podcasts ready to go – will ensure that the medium continues to thrive.